Description
"This brilliant and well-researched book ought to be required reading for anyone interested in conflict resolution; it gives nuance to an otherwise stale-mated debate." Journalisten
Winner 2020 Indie Book Award for Social Change
2021 International Book Awards finalist in Social Change
Highlighted in Publishers Weekly list of New Social Justice Books
TED talk speaker OEzlem Cekic offers a blueprint for confronting racism, prejudice and hatred. She calls her conflict resolution process "Dialogue Coffee".
Familiarity and dialogue is the antidote to intolerance and prejudice. OEzlems method of having coffee with people who send her hate mail has been recognized around the world and inspires listening, understanding and an end to blind hatred.
When OEzlem Cekic became the first Muslim MP in the Danish Parliament, her email inbox started flooding with hate mail and threats, and her first reaction was to delete and ignore each abusive message. But eventually, she decided to take a risk. She started replying to messages and inviting the senders to meet and engage in dialogue over coffee. What she discovered was that she could create change in the people who sent her hate mail, understand where their anger came from, and build friendships through finding common ground.
It is possible to have a conversation with anyone if you:
- Listen and focus on what you have in common instead of your differences
- Praise your counterpart for having the courage to have this conversation
- Recognize the other persons emotions and feelings even if you dont agree with them
- Distance yourself from the other persons attitude, but never the human and their humanity
Readers of books on activism, racism and social change like How to Be an Antiracist, The Racial Healing Handbook, or Rising Out of Hatred will be inspired and encouraged by OEzlem Cekic's Overcoming Hate Through Dialogue.
OEzlem Cekic was the first Muslim MP in the Danish Parliament, so this book became a bestseller in Europe. Her TED talk has over a million views. She will leverage her political connections. This book was featured in a Publishers Weekly article highlighting new and forthcoming social justice books. Her TED Talk was #6 on TED curator Chris Anderson's top 10 TED talks of 2018.
About the Author
OEzlem Cekic was born in Turkey in 1976. She lived in Finland for two years while her parents worked as caretakers/cleaners at the Turkish Embassy in Helsinki, and later moved to Denmark. OEzlem served in the Danish parliament from 2007 to 2015 as one of the first female politicians with a Muslim immigrant background. Since 2015, OEzlem has been giving talks and providing advice in Denmark, and internationally, on how to build bridges between ethnic minorities, companies, organizations, and local government. She devised the dialogue coffee concept, based on the belief that what binds us together is far greater than what separates us. In 2018, OEzlem became only the second Dane in history to give a TED-Talk, which was about her experiences with Dialogue Coffee. At present, the talk has been viewed over 1.3 million times. Learn more about her groundbreaking work at http://dialoguecoffee.org/.
Book Information
ISBN 9781642503760
Author OEzlem Cekic
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint Mango Media
Publisher Mango Media